Arcanum Unbounded

September 19, 2016
Bestseller Sanderson’s first short fiction collection gives readers nine behind-the-scenes glimpses at the intricate cosmogony that ties together his various blockbuster fantasy series. In the Shardworlds, magic comes from pieces of a shattered creator deity. Close investigation into how magic shapes its users in the world of Elantris (the Hugo-winning “The Emperor’s Soul”) contrasts neatly with how its users can reshape magic for their own needs (“White Sand,” a graphic novel excerpt). Complete with spoiler alerts for the Mistborn series, a short story (“The Eleventh Metal”) tells of the training of original Mistborn trilogy protagonist Kelsier, and a novella (“Mistborn: Secret History”) fills in the trilogy’s resolution with his “afterlife” activities. Original to the collection, “Edgedancer” chronicles the madcap adventures of Lift, a user of “awesomeness,” who will be more important in upcoming Stormlight novels. Other pieces focus on non-series worlds: for example, in “Sixth of the Dusk,” competing uses of magical ecology fuse into a determination to save a planet from the dangerous “gifts” of advanced aliens. This collection is required reading for Sanderson fans, offering plenty for new readers who are undeterred by learning too much. Agent: Joshua Bilmes, JABberwocky Literary.

September 15, 2016
A sprawling collection of mini-epic fantasies from genre stalwart Sanderson (The Bands of Mourning, 2016, etc.).An expert forger confronts her greatest challenge yet: a man's soul. A woman fights for survival on the edge of a forest swarming with bloodthirsty ghosts. A man risks his life to save a mysterious island that tries to kill him at every step. In these stories, Sanderson extends the worlds he's created in his many novels--and begins to hint at how all these worlds are connected. This kind of thing is like catnip for a certain type of fantasy fan, and fans of Sanderson's other works will eagerly devour this collection, in which familiar characters return and familiar worlds are further explored. The novella Edgedancer, for example, gives a minor character from the Stormlight Archive series a chance to fight assassins, face down storms, and, as she puts it, "be awesome." When these stories are good, they're very good, with all the quick wit, richly detailed settings, and memorable characters fans have come to expect from this prolific writer. But some of the stories in the collection are more like deleted scenes from other stories than like stand-alone tales, and others focus too much on worldbuilding and not enough on Sanderson's real gifts for creating character, emotion, and suspense. There are some standout stories here, but overall, it's more of a treat for superfans than a way for casual readers to dip into Sanderson's work.

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Starred review from November 15, 2016
Sanderson is a master of delightful adventure stories and magnificent epics. In his first collection of shorter fiction, he explores the various worlds of the Cosmere. In The Emperor's Soul, he tells the story of a woman who is set the impossible task of forging the emperor's soul after a head injury. In The Hope of Elantris, we see the fate of the children of Elantris. Then, in several stories set in the world of the Mistborn, Sanderson gives us some of Kelsier's origin story and follows up with missing details of what happened behind the scenes of the original Mistborn trilogy. The collection concludes with the marvelous novella Edgedancer, from the Stormlight Archive. As one expects from Sanderson, his stories are meaty, well-developed adventures, even the shorter works demonstrating an impressive (but never overwhelming) amount of thought about how the worlds they're set in work. On top of that, of course, he is expert at swift-moving stories with engaging characters. Were it not for the spoilers for his longer works, this would serve as an excellent introduction to Sanderson's worlds. As it is, this is a must-read for fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)